Engagement analysis between employer and trade union representatives:


City of Johannesburg Municipality Authors:


Dr. Jan Meyer (Pr.M) Milpark Business School and Sharon Davids City of Johannesburg Contact: janmeyer@milpark.ac.za


sharonda@joburg.org.za


union representatives in the City of Johannesburg Municipality (CoJ) and advances an understanding of the labour relationship between them. The research problem formulated from this research is what form of engagement is beneficial for a constructive relationship between employers and unions?” This is an exploratory study and entailed soliciting participation of four key representative organisations. An electronic interview questionnaire was developed to address the research questions and objectives. The findings offer insight into the existing relationship, illustrates how adversarial labour relationships result in unsuccessful engagement between employers and unions and also shows that the labour relationship is more complex than initially assumed. However, there is room for improvement through increased engagement, improved communication, pursuing areas of common interest and engaging both formally and in formally.


T 42 Management Today | January 2012


his study assesses the engagement between employer representatives and trade


Background According to the Tokiso Report (2010), published by Tokiso an independent labour dispute resolution organisation, the public sector was responsible for about 64% of workdays lost between 1995 and 2009. Research by Banjo and Balkaran (2009: 120) on the 2007 public sector strike in South Africa traced the root of the public service union strike to “the continuing frosty relationship between the state and the labour movement. The troubled labour relations have in fact often led to violent industrial action.”


Foster, Murrie and Larid (2009: 504), in the paper “It takes two to tango: evidence of a decline in institutional industrial relations in New Zealand”, claim that the withdrawal of employers’ support for collective bargaining is in part due to the absence of awareness on the part of employers’ to the benefits of entering into a dialogue with unions.


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